Of the many pleasures in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis, the one that inspires the most gratitude in me is the sibling writer-directors’ ability to be sentimental about an era while steadfastly refusing to give in to undue romanticism. … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Four
Next Time I Marry (Garson Kanin, 1938). The earliest film that gave Lucille Ball star billing casts her as bratty heiress who needs to marry the right man to secure her inheritance, the sort of dilemma that only exists in the movies. Arriving a few years after It Happened One Night, the film is transparently a riff on the Frank Capra hit, with Ball’s entitled scold being tamed by the regular joe (James Ellison) she impulsively weds to get her money. They road trip across the country in a race to secure an annulment, director Garson Kanin staging everything with … Continue reading Cretton, Hood, Kanin, Minnelli, Sturges
When director Richard Linklater unexpectedly delivered a sequel to the 1995 romantic drama Before Sunrise, he revisited the same characters nearly ten years later, largely sticking to the established formula. In Before Sunset, released in 2004, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) had another decade of mileage on them, but the film offered a similar dance of philosophizing and courtship in a European capital. The novelty in seeing characters who were slightly more mature didn’t necessarily change the dynamic all that much. To me, at least some of the praise heaped on the second installment felt like a critical … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Five
25. Jimmy Cliff, Give Thankx By the late nineteen-seventies, Jimmy Cliff was essentially persona non grata in his homeland. Born James Chambers in Jamaica, Cliff was one of the first artists to bring reggae music to a global audience, but the personal journey he took as he achieved fame alienated him from his countrymen, particularly when he converted to Islam in the early part of the decade. Rejecting Rastafarianism was seen by some as akin to rejected all of Jamaican culture, and he was often greeted with derision. To a degree, this may have freed Cliff up, as he followed … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 25
As promised, this new Saturday feature will be “nicely mortifying.” The title of the feature should make it clear enough. I will dig into my big bin of old reviews and share something here every week, no matter how painful it may be to retype it without making any fresh edits. I’ll even try to refrain from too much second-guessing or grousing about syntax errors in the freshly-penned annotations that will serve as introductions. Anything that has not previously shown up in this little corner of the internet is fair game, so even items from my former online home may … Continue reading From the Archive: Darkman
Today, as must happen from time to time, this space is turned over to a song–and, by extension, the primary knowledge I have of said song and the artist attached to it–that I originally discovered of the first true treasure trove of hidden musical wonders that I found out there among the twists of the information superhighway. I spent weeks tracking through the entirety of the now-defunct Little Hits blog, stocking my iTunes with the catchy, joyous, punky and perfect obscurities that were shared there. It was like discovering a funhouse mirror version of my beloved 90FM C Stacks (the … Continue reading One for Friday: The Atlantics, “When You’re Young”
There’s a widely-shared view that Alfonso Cuarón delivered the sort of virtuoso directing job with Gravity that should end with a mic drop at the close of the credits. Even the film’s detractors typically can’t help but marvel at the … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Six
#48 — Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) I believe the current consensus is that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is supposed to be viewed as, at best, a compromised adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Forty-Eight
There are few things in cinema more pleasurable than a movie that manages to signal from the very beginning that it’s something special, that it’s been put together with care and honesty. Short Term 12, directed by Destin Cretton, does … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Seven
Without exception, it was a pleasure to watch him meet a role. Even in those rare instances when the ideal dynamics of the part eluded him or there simply wasn’t enough there–not necessarily there on the page, since there’s reason to believe he was capable of bringing more than he found–for him to build a fully-realized, deeply-felt character, it was clear that Philip Seymour Hoffman took to his roles with a deep integrity designed to gain him insight. He was a character actor in the truest sense, including the predilection to disappear into roles, changing his physical appearance to suit … Continue reading Philip Seymour Hoffman, 1967 – 2014
Coffee for Two 